Teammates With Benefits

Chapter 11

Devin's POV

We run onto the field getting ourselves hyped for the game, and I notice that for what seems like the first time ever, Cam and Aaron aren't at each other's necks, trying to kill each other. They were laughing together during warmups. I was glad they finally put aside their differences hopefully, and hopefully Aaron won't be weird about me dating Alicia anymore. He's usually chill about it, but every now and then he literally threatens me by saying that he's gonna tell Alicia to break up with me. I hope I mean enough to Alicia that she will just stay with me no matter what Aaron says, but who knows. 

The coin toss is won by our opponents, and they elect to receive the ball at the start of the second half, which is definitely the strategy to go for. Me and the rest of the defense sits on the bench while the offense goes onto the field with a new player, Kai, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite teammates. He's pretty hilarious, and God knows our team needs positive energy to bring the team closer together.

The first play they run is a fake handoff to Aaron and a deep pass to Torry, who catches the ball, going 40 yards. Aaron picks up about 15 yards on 2 run plays, and then Aaron surprisingly catches a touchdown pass and chest bumps Cam. I guess they are finally getting along. It was surprising for Aaron to get a touchdown catch because he usually doesn't like running routes like a wide receiver, but he did there, and it worked really well.

The offense runs off the field and the rest of us congratulate them.

"Good job guys, nice catch," I tell Aaron and the offense as they make their way to the bench, clapping and grinning.

"Great work out there, I love what I saw out there," says our coach, clapping his hands.

The defense steps onto the field, and we have a big size advantage over the other team. Their first play of the drive results in a 5 yard loss on a sack by my fellow linebacker Khalil. He's really good at playing linebacker because he's an absolute unit. He's super fast and he's huge. He's the worst nightmare for runningbacks and quarterbacks alike. 

"Sit down lil boy!" he yells at the quarterback as he walks away, flexing. I dap him up, slap him on the back of the helmet, and return to my position to get set for the next play.

Our defense also has a new face, Jax, who is also quickly becoming one of my favorite teammates, pretty much for the same reason Kai is becoming one of my favorite teammates. The next play they throw an awful pass that is picked off by Adrian and returned for a touchdown, giving us a 14-0 lead. 

"Let's fucking go!!!" he yells, running towards DeMarcus for a chest bump. It's not a good idea, and Adrian is bodied by DeMarcus, who is also a fucking semitruck in a man. 

Adrian quickly gets back up, grinning, running to dap up the rest of the defense.

We remain on the field because we got a touchdown on defense, and I force a fumble on their runningback and it is recovered by Derek. Very early, our defense is looking absolutely unshakeable, which it is. We play as a complete unit, there have never been massive beefs in our defensive the unit the way Aaron and Cam have hated each other for years.

Aaron and Cam again ball out on the next offensive drive, and Cam throws a touchdown to Kai, his first career reception and touchdown on our team, extending our lead to a convincing 21-0 before the 1st quarter is even over.

The next drive is again dominated by our defense, shutting down 2 run plays in a row, completely clogging up any running lanes that their runningbacks could try to get through. On third down, their quarterback throws a pretty accurate pass for the first time in the game, but the recovery by Jax is amazing and the pass is deflected before the receiver can catch it. They are forced to punt the ball away back to our offense, which is flowing amazingly.